


Ghosts

by Wakeywakey_bigmistakey



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, I might make it a two shot, Lincoln and Lexa are dead, not sure, yeah its that kind of fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6251944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey/pseuds/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a month since the softness left the world and Octavia is losing it<br/>Clarke can't feel anything, or she'll crumble under the weight of it all<br/>They meet again</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

She never shows up. You feel like you should’ve seen it coming, but you’d at least hoped. You saddle up and feel white-hot anger in your veins. It’s intense, but you pack it away. You wrap it up and hide it away for when it’s actually useful, because right now it’s just distracting. You can’t help the small voice in the back of your head hoping that she’ll catch up, that she’ll return, _that she wouldn’t leave all of you, not now._ The voices quiet down once you reach the gates of Arkadia, your entire being screaming to turn around, to run from the metal structure that represents everything you hate.

You want to run far away, maybe back and find her and beat her up or something. You think that might cheer you up, at least a little bit. It’s a poor consolation, but it’s all you have as the gates close behind you and the walls feel like they might collapse in on you. You’re on your horse and everyone is looking at you, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen so much disgust, so much pure hatred, in the eyes of others. You’re the girl raised under the floor, criminal from the day you were born, and you really should be used to this, but your throat is constricted and your chest feels heavy. You don’t, you absolutely _refuse_ to let it show, but you’re scared. You hide your fear beside your anger, saving it, and you climb off your horse. You don’t let the hot tears that prickles your eyes fall, not even when Lincoln isn’t there to greet you.

It’s not the guards that greet you, but you find yourself wishing that it was. You can’t recognize the eyes that meets yours, even though they are your own. He doesn’t say anything, and you’re glad. You’re glad because you think you might let your anger loose, and that would surely be the end of not only his, but your life as well.

‘O- ‘

You dismiss him with a pointed glare and clenched jaws, your eyes filled with ice and anger and _death,_ and you can’t help but hate him for how he put it there. You think he might see it, you know he reads you better than anyone, and you see his throat bob and tears brim his eyes. You can’t find it within you to care. You try, because you’d like some extra support, but all you see is the blood on his hands and your weakened mentor and _her._ Because had he not done this, she might have come, she might have been able to fix things. She might have been able to look past the death that cluttered her mind and wracked her body, but you’d heard what he’d said to her. You’d heard him, and it made your bones chill. He was no longer the boy who raised you, he was the worst of men. He leads you to the holding cell and you think he might’ve said something about interrogation and Pike, but all you see is Lincoln. He’s there, he’s alive, he’s _holding you_ and you feel the tiniest bit of the dread leave your system.

 

 

Something becomes abundantly clear once the interrogation begins: you are not Skaikru, you are not welcome, and you are considered a traitor. It doesn’t bother you. After seeing the carnage they’d left, that your brother had left, you feel like wearing traitor as a title. You feel like shouting it out, getting it tattooed on your forehead, _something_ so that no one will think you likeminded to those _fucking cowards_.  You tell Lincoln as much, just to see him smile, and he has softness in his gaze and tenderness in his voice when he whispers ‘so be it, Natrona kom Skaikru’ and you let out a soft laugh. There is little kindness in the world, and you think he might possess all of it. You lean on him in the corner of the holding cell, talking in voices too small for the vastness of your words. You think he is trying to distract you, but you don’t mind one bit. He tells you of the village in which he grew up, of the blue oceans and green valleys that you’ll visit one day. His voice turns into a low mumble hours into his stories, but you listen and for a moment everything seems like it will be okay. He tells of the boats that you’ll sail and the mountains you’ll climb with such confidence that for the briefest of moments and the longest eternities, you find yourself believing him. You believe in a better world, one in which his softness is not unique and in which you’ll be free in ways you can’t even imagine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Your world crumbles on the morning when the world turns into all rough edges and harsh words, harsher feelings roaring inside inside you. Your forever is gone in the blink of an eye, and you can’t breathe. He was trying to help. He was trying to help the ones that kept him captive, and they ended his life in return. He was performing _healing_ on a _guard,_ and yet they deemed it fit to kill him, to execute him. Your brother can’t meet your eyes, but you stare at him, quietly seething. This is not the simmering anger Indra taught you, it’s all-consuming rage, but you don’t let it show. If you let it show, they’ll never let you out.

You see things, while in your cell of hatred and disgust. You see the children, cheeks sunken and arms thin. You see adults, pale and lacking any energy. You haven’t been there for more than a couple of weeks, but the hunger has spread and the despair is growing. It’s all their own _fucking fault_ and you feel bad for the children but you blame your family. The word feels foreign in your mouth, it brings bile to the back of your throat and you think that your family died on the chilly spring morning when the softness left the world.

He comes to your cell once in a while. You were moved to solitary after the unforgivable happened, and he never opens the doors but he talks for hours on end. He talks of duty and safety and _family,_ and you want to throw up, to throw punches, to throw yourself off a cliff, but instead you sit completely still. You keep your eyes empty because despite him being the best at reading you, the competition was never that great and he fucking killed his only superior, and you refuse to allow him knowledge of the state that you’re in. You look at him, sometimes, and what you notice makes you loathe him beyond words, beyond the hatred you’d thought already endless: his cheeks don’t sink in. His arms, stomach and torso never shrinks. He is well-fed and you can’t see your brother in him. He’d been selfish, sure, but he’d always hated the privileged and their abundance while everyone else deteriorated. The boy you used to idolize and mirror yourself in, has turned into a man that you can’t stand to look at.                   

 

* * *

 

 

It has been nearly a month when two silhouettes, in the darkness of night, is pushed into your cell. The door shuts and the lights are turned on. Your eyes burn for several long moments. You don’t particularly feel like opening them. You do anyways, and the hollow numbness that has settled into your bones turns into raging, burning anger that reddens the edges of your view. Her hair is blonde, even through the dirt, and her clothes resemble your own. Your fists are clenched and you think you might be growling, but you simply can’t hear over the rush of blood in your ears. She looks at you, but you don’t meet her eye, you refuse to. She could have stopped this, she could have prevented it, _he_ could be alive, had she not been too busy playing politics with the _great_ commander. Her gaze is locked on you and you can’t handle it so you shove her into the wall, eyes still not meeting hers. The third person is saying something, maybe a protest, but you don’t hear it, don’t want to hear it.

‘The commander of death’ you utter, your voice low but unyielding ‘your specialty is in high demand around here. Not that you’d know, you goddamn fucking coward.’

She stands still. She doesn’t say anything. Your fist connects with her mouth and your knuckles sting, but it’s all you can think about in that moment. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t say anything. You look to see blood trickle down her chin and she moves. She doesn’t hit back or yell, or move out of the way. Her left hand slowly raises, and she wipes the blood off. For a moment, she looks at her hand. It’s red and you think it’s fitting: the mighty Wanheda, with her hands bloodied by the lives lost because of her actions. Your eyes finally meet hers, and it makes you pause for just a moment. The blue orbs, the ones you’d seen furious and happy and worried and torn, the ones you’d seen burdened with the weight of the mountain, the eyes that expressed so, so much all the time, were completely empty. Not in the way of the warrior, the hardened, inscrutable gaze that Indra had taught you. This wasn’t something that could be taught. You don’t let it stop you though, because suddenly all you see is Lincoln’s softness and the harshness of the world.

‘This is on you. I understood TonDC, agreed even. I got it when we needed an ambassador, we really did. But that you, of all people,’ you pause, inhaling once, twice, not allowing the turmoil you feel to register on your face ‘that you wouldn’t be here, too put an end to this… This is worse than the mountain, but then again, you didn’t mind that all too much, did you? I mean, you _chose_ to stay and for what? To try and convince that fucking _bitch_ who- ‘

You don’t finish. You don’t see it happening, but suddenly you’re on your back and white-hot pain shoots though your nose. It’s broken, you think, and Clarke is above you, her fists connecting with your face time and time again. All your training is rendered useless because it comes as such a shock, and because your gazes are still locked and she looks _haunting._ Haunted. The second silhouette pulls her off and her breath is heavy, but she still hasn’t said a single word, hasn’t let out the slightest of sounds. Finally, you look at the person and you realize that of all people, it’s _Murphy_ who saved your ass and you can’t really comprehend it. Clarke isn’t struggling against his hold and her eyes have gone dead again, but your face is literally dripping blood and for a moment you’d been sure that she’d kill you. You’re not sure how much you’d have minded it. You look at her hands and if they were bloody before, it’s nothing compared to the crimson liquid that now stains her skin. She looks at them too, and you notice that she’s trembling. It gets worse, until she’s shaking like a leaf and her legs collapse underneath her.

She sits on the floor and she isn’t crying, but you don’t think it’s for the lack of emotion. You realize, after a few moments, that this is how you’ve looked for the most part of your incarceration. A surge of completely unwelcome compassion shoots up within you, so you sit down next to her. You don’t understand exactly what’s going on, but now that you get a good look at her, you know something is way off, more so than ever before: she has deep, deep black half-moons underneath her eyes that certainly isn't war paint. Her cheeks are hollow, almost as much as her eyes, and you can’t help but think that she actually looks like death. The grim reaper with a thin frame, pale skin and the title of Wanheda.

‘I couldn’t-’ she starts, her voice shaking only slightly less than her body ‘I couldn’t do anything. She just, she just died and it doesn’t make any sense and I never told her… I never got to tell her and now she’s gone.’

You understand nothing and your brain sort of short-circuits because Clarke, the strong leader who’d led them to survival time and time again, is crying and it wrenches your heart because it reminds you of yourself, and maybe you sort of understand what’s going on. The blonde isn’t continuing but to your surprise, Murphy is. He isn’t sarcastic, he isn’t mean, his voice is soft and respectful and you think you might have gotten knocked out when Clarke attacked because it’s just _too_ weird. He continues, none the less.

‘Uhm, I… -One of the commander’s advisers or whatever tried to kill Clarke and frame me, and uhm… The commander came in and he had obviously never held a gun before, so he just…’ Murphy pauses and your breath hitch, because you know what that means for Arkadia. ‘She died, not long thereafter. Clarke, she never really got over it. I mean, it was her girlfriend and all, so-’ but you’re not listening anymore, you’re just looking down on the crying blonde and it clicks. She’s going through the same thing that you are, and suddenly it makes sense, her staying in Polis, her faith in the woman. You don’t exactly get her, not after the betrayal, but your chest feels even heavier than ever when you think of the burdens the young woman has had to bear, the strains and endless scars on the very core of her heart.

You know that the conclave where the next _Heda_ will be chosen takes around three weeks, and that’s when your heart starts pumping adrenaline into your veins. That, combined with the time it takes to assemble the armies of the twelve clans, leaves around a month until the attack that is sure to obliterate Arkadia strikes. You’ve been in your cell for around three and a half weeks. You look down and wordlessly offer Clarke your hand, pulling her onto shaking legs.

‘How long until they’re here’ you ask; you know she’ll understand. She takes a shaky breath, then a couple more.

‘Three days at the most. We were sent here to inform that either we execute the people behind the massacres, or she will leave Arkadia in ruins.’

‘Who is “she”?’

‘Ontari’

You swallow. You guess it’s very merciful of her to give options, but you know that Skaikru will never do it. You saw how they looked at you, the slaughtering of innocent villages, you remember how they drove the softness out of an already unforgiving world, and you know that they will rather die a bloody death than admit that they are in no way or shape superior. You remember the valleys and oceans that they took away from you with one bullet, and you know what must be done.                                                                                                                                                                 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a shitty coping thing at 1 a.m


End file.
